Conventional player tracking systems are used by casinos to monitor player activity on slot machines. These systems require the installation of several hardware and software components to each slot machine. These components are in addition to other hardware installed to facilitate slot machine accounting reporting, slot revenue analysis, slot event (alarm/error condition) tracking and/or to meet regulatory/internal auditing requirements.
Player tracking requires that the player be identified at the start of play and when play has been completed. Any slot activity in the interim can then be attributed to that specific player. All player tracking systems require a component that collects some portion of slot data. Player tracking systems have traditionally been additive to slot Accounting systems. Slot accounting can exist without player tracking components, but player tracking components cannot exist without slot accounting components.
The most basic function of a player tracking system is to identify the following for each session of the player at the slot machine:
i. What slot machine is being played
ii. How much Coin-In and Coin-Out activity is generated
iii. The number of games played
iv. The amount of time spent on slot (elapsed time from start of session until the end of the session)
The capturing of activity is accomplished by interfacing to the existing slot accounting system. In nearly all cases, the slot accounting system interfaces to the slot machine using a communication protocol such as Slot Accounting System (SAS), Slot Data Systems (SDS) or the New South Wales (NSW) X-protocol.
One example of a player tracking system that is compatible with the SAS protocol is the SlotScanner™ Player Tracking module available from Advansys Solutions, which includes machine-mounted hardware and backend software.
FIGS. 1-2 show diagrams of current conventional hardware components for a conventional slot accounting system.
These components include those that are required to facilitate the collection of data for slot machine accounting, analysis, event tracking and/or to meet regulatory/internal auditing requirements.
i. Serial interface to Slot Machine SAS (Slot Accounting System) port—(allows bi-directional communication between the “Host” system and the slot machine)
ii. Slot machine controller unit—Depending on the system this can be one per slot machine or per several slot machines. These controllers have traditionally been designed to support player components from the list below.
iii. Communications system between controller and System server—This is done by TCP/IP, serial or some other method directly to a Central Server.
iv. Central server stores collected information as well as holds logic controlling how the information is collected and displayed.
FIGS. 3-4 show diagrams of current conventional additional components added to the FIG. 2 components to support conventional player tracking.
FIGS. 5-6 show details of player facing interfaces at each slot machine in a conventional slot accounting and player tracking system, which includes the following components:
Decorative/Mechanical Components
i. Player panel designed to hold player facing components (must be customized to fit each manufacturers' game type (at least 100 types)
ii. Player panel overlays with artwork
Functional Components—All of these devices connect to and are dependant up on the slot accounting system. Information collected from or sent to these devices either comes from or is sent to a central server.
i. Display (can be simple “Text based” to “Full color graphics touch screen”)
ii. Player facing card reader (usually mag-stripe reader)
iii. Keypad (or soft keys from touch screen display)
iv. Casino-issued player card—The player inserts the card into the card reader to identify the start and end of the player session at the slot machine.
Other items required to support player tracking:
i. Additional logic and storage capacity is required at the central server to enable Player Tracking
ii. Ability to Issue and re-Print Player Cards                a. Card Printers / Card Stock        b. Staff        